


plastic chairs

by cerebella



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-10
Updated: 2015-03-10
Packaged: 2018-03-17 05:57:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3517982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cerebella/pseuds/cerebella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spy grows old, and finds it suits him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	plastic chairs

**Author's Note:**

> i'm sure there's a bird somewhere in this mess

They spend their mornings in the woods. It's the early hours that are the softest, when they're sleepy and hungry. Sniper always rouses before Spy does, and he usually finds the man sitting just outside the van on his white, plastic chair with his arms crossed.

Spy will make the man a cup of coffee and runs fingers through his hair unabashedly, reveling in the silence and the softness of both the forest and his man in the morning.

He'll sit down next to Sniper and rest his head on the man's shoulder, murmuring something about the war that will wage in a small while. But they're in the middle of a ceasefire, so they both sit there, with their quiet breath and their drowsy blinking.

The forest is so peaceful in the morning, slicked up in watery sunlight and cooled by a gentle wind. It's not like Teufort, a cesspool of comic pride or cruelty, and it's not like the headquarters during on a slow day, awkward and staggered and frustratingly dull.

Sniper will watch the birds and lift his arm to wrap around Spy, not really interested in pursuing any sort of solid interaction. And Spy always disregards this, of course.

"We should cut your hair," Spy says lazily, looking up at his lover.

"Mmph."

"Do not  _grunt_  at me."

Sniper groans.

"Oh, mon  _amour_ , good morning to you as well. What a beautiful day. How nice to share pleasantries with your lover. Ah, I am swooning," Spy says drily, glaring up at him, gesticulating dramatically to their surroundings.

"Oh, shove off it. M'hair is just fine," he grumbles.

"Ridiculous. It is not nineteen-fourty-two, you will not walk around like this–"

"–I'm not tryna walk around, you're the one who wants to get to the bloody barber."

"Who said anything about a barber?" Spy snaps, flicking his lover's face. "Look at these cheekbones. You have been blessed with this flawless bone structure, I will not see it go to waste. I already have brought scissors. Stay here."

"Blimey, sorry, I was gonna go run a bleedin' marathon but oh  _well–_ "

"I will  _hit_  you, mon cher." Spy storms back into the van, rolling his eyes.

The caravan door slams behind Sniper, and he sighs quietly, sliding a hand down his face with a quiet smile. He wouldn't expect much else from the rogue, perhaps more mocking and less flattery. Perhaps no flattery. Probably no flattery, almost definitely some grotesque similes.

Certainly a rude metaphor, at the least. But the rogue seems softer these days.

 

 

"I look daft," Sniper mumbles.

"You look handsome," Spy coos, cupping his jaw from where he stands behind the man, an ornate pair of scissors in his other hand. "My rugged, strong outdoorsman.  _Hooflah_ ," Spy smiles, making a wild gesture with his hands.

"Hooflah? That don't sound very French." Sniper grins, smirking up at him.

" _Oui_." Spy stares down seriously. "What? It's a term with character."

"You made a noise like a li'l kid. Fighter jet noises 'n all. S'cute," Sniper shakes his head, folding his arms, muttering something under his breath.

Spy watches him, aloof. "We should go out to dinner tonight," he says thoughtfully, after a pause.

"Right. Get something proper hooflah," Sniper deadpans.

"Enough! What's wrong with you?" Spy cries, and the marksman tosses his head back in laughter.

 

 

The sun never sets where it's supposed to, Spy thinks. Maybe their little homemade sundial is wrong, maybe he's remembered it incorrectly–but the sun doesn't set in the West here. It sets somewhere different every evening, and Sniper cocks an eyebrow when he mentions this, but goodness, isn't it true?

They stand by each other's sides and Sniper's mouth is slightly agape. "Christ," he mutters. Just North-East, the sun sits peculiarly on the horizon and tinges the sky pink and bruise blue about it like it's nothing at all to set in the wrong place.

Spy thinks about the mechanics of it, the orientation of the universe even when they've gone inside, even when they're tangled up in bed in the middle of the night. It's such a strange thing, so massive and inexplicable that the world should be flailing about, but nobody in the world even seems to notice. And when they find him staring, eyes narrowed, they don't care. They clap him on the back.

He points it out. They don't even know what he's talking about. Heavy looks sad and turns away, Medic's elbow deep in Demoman's internal organs, and Demoman–well, suffice to say, Demoman isn't inclined quite to answer. Scout swallows, and tosses him a baseball. (For reasons, Spy can't explain, the boy is so much kinder after that. He's almost offended by his tenderness, until he realizes Scout just  _cares_.)

And when they come home covered in dust and blood and smelling like the badland sun, the world seems completely and utterly at peace with the sun where it's not supposed to be. Like the galaxy hasn't erupted into a spontaneous galactic flame, like it hasn't been ruptured by an inexplicable, marvelous combustion.

He supposes, he reckons, he wonders–he ponders the fantastic food-chain of the planet. In another land, are they flailing and panicking and foretelling the grim future? Perhaps they know why, and they're not so concerned, but here they haven't lifted a finger. Miss Pauling, that spooky girl, with the wicked revolver Spy has always envied, only shares with him that lovely smile before peeling off on her motorcycle into that damnable sunset he simply can't explain.

And Sniper, Sniper doesn't really seem to mind. He smiles and he hums, putting their laundry out to dry on a flimsy clothing line on the hot days, when neither of them really feel inclined to don much clothing anyway. The sun goes wherever it pleases, and it always does in these ridiculous deserts.

How long it's been like this, he doesn't know. He's just sure that it can't really matter after so long, and even if Medic one day sits him down and says something is wrong, not with the world but with  _him_ , Spy doesn't mind. Something has come loose, and he doesn't really care, and that's the best part.

He's growing old, Medic says, and he's never felt lighter, because he's grown old with the love of his life, and he didn't even notice when the world seemed to be falling apart right before his very eyes.

When he walks with all his aching joints back to the camper van, Sniper almost looks bitter a moment before melting into something sweeter. He drops a kiss on the mercenary's cheek and glances at the sun, and it just makes him laugh. He's lost it. And it's not even a burden, and he doesn't even know how sundials work, for goodness' sake. Who even cares? Maybe the sun truly is where everyone knows it to be, and he's simply... lost.

But who gets lost at home? Spy is never lost on his plastic chair, or in Sniper's tentative grip when the wind and rain rattle his head beyond comfort, or when they sit together quietly watching the sun sink into the night. He's quite wonderfully okay, and he wagers he always will be.

**Author's Note:**

> there was no bird. i cry


End file.
